Chapter 2: Second Promise, First Dance

Rinoa looked up with an apologetic smile as Squall approached her. She hastily gathered the papers covering the table into a neat pile in front of her.

"Sorry," she said as he sat down.

"Don't worry about it. How are things coming along?"

"Good. Aki's got me just about whipped up into 'instructor' shape, and the classes have been filled. Now I've just got to figure out what they're going to sing," she said with a small laugh, gesturing to the sheet music on the table.

"When's the first class?"

"Next Monday," she said. "So I've got just under a week to get everything together."

"Are you nervous?" he asked.

"No, not really. They're just kids, right?"

Squall nodded. Just kids, he thought. Even if she disapproved of Garden turning them into mercenaries, they were still just kids to her. Regardless of what they would go on to do on the battlefield, she would teach them to sing.

Rinoa watched him sip from a bottle of water in the moment of silence between them, noting that she'd never seen him drink coffee. She thought it was very typical of him, to eschew the immediate benefits of something he would eventually come to rely on, as if readying himself for the inevitable day when it would disappear forever. If coffee and people were to one day become extinct, Squall Leonhart would be adequately prepared.

"So, Squall," she said, knowing she would have to take the initiative if she were to wring an answer out of him. "Did I do something wrong?"

He quickly shook his head. That wasn't the question he expected. "No," Squall said. "No, of course not."

"Then why don't you want to be here?"

Squall was silent for a moment, unprepared for her bluntness. They hadn't spoken very much in the week that followed their victory over Ultimecia, and he had forgotten how quickly she could cut to the root of his problems.

"Because I wasn't trained to be here," he said, ashamed of his self-defense mechanism even as he spoke. That he had to put up these walls instead of simply telling her. His empty words tumbled out before he could stop them. "I'm a soldier, Rinoa. You knew that when you moved here."

"Giving orders doesn't make you any less of a soldier, Squall. When I moved here, I didn't think I'd spend most of my time waiting for you to come home from missions. Wondering if you'll come home… I moved here because I wanted to be with you."

"You know I can take care of myself."

"Of course I do!" she said. Looking around the crowded cafeteria, she lowered her voice before she continued. "But that was different, when we were fighting Ultimecia. She wanted to destroy the entire world. But the jobs that SeeD does… It's just taking sides, whichever one will pay the most."

"What are you getting at, Rinoa? You hired SeeD yourself."

"Yes, and the Timber Owls happened to be fighting for a just cause. But not everyone who hires SeeD is, and you know that. Garden isn't the military of Balamb – it's an academy of mercenaries. So wrong or right, you'll follow your orders."

He looked away. "That's right."

"So why insist upon working in the field, then? Do you enjoy killing? Do you really need to shed blood with your own hands?"

Squall looked back to her as if she had slapped him.

"I'm sorry," she said, reaching across the table to put her hands on his arm. "I didn't mean that."

Rinoa hadn't meant what she said, but she had meant to get his attention. Even if it hurt him a little, she had to remind him that she compromised her morals by living here. She didn't expect anything in return from him, not right away, but she wanted her presence at Garden to be worthwhile.

"I know you don't enjoy killing, Squall. Nobody here enjoys it. I wouldn't be here if I couldn't see that. I accept what Garden does, even if I disagree with it – because I know the people here are good. Because I want to be with you and our friends."

"Just tell me why," she said. "Even if it's because you don't want me here."

"Don't think that," he said, stung with guilt.

"What am I supposed to think? We had one perfect night, and it's like you've been avoiding me ever since."

Squall's eyes drifted away from hers. "You're right," he said. "It was perfect. But I don't know where to go from there. I don't know what it's like to be in a serious relationship. I've went out with a couple of girls, but never for very long. They never meant anything to me."

"Until recently," he continued, "I didn't even realize I had friends."

Rinoa took his hands into hers and leaned across the table a little toward him. "Take your job back and we'll have a lot more time to figure it out, together."

"I can't."

She sank back into her seat.

"Rinoa, I'm sorry. I just need some time to figure things out."

"All right. Just promise me you'll think about it?"

"I promise."

Rinoa smiled and stood up. She came around the table to where he sat and kissed him lightly on the lips.

"I'm glad we talked, Squall. See you later."

Matthew Caraway sized up his opponent as they faced each other in the mountainous training grounds behind Balamb Garden. Instructor Quistis Trepe was nearly two inches taller, and, he assumed, his equal in physical strength. The diminutive cadet made up for his lack of power with immense speed, but knew this would be his only advantage, if he had it at all.

He held his weapon in both hands at his waist, a six-foot long quarterstaff, this particular one unadorned and lightweight for training purposes. The instructor's weapon was a ten-foot bullwhip, meaning that both of them would be vying for long-range attacks. He had never, in Galbadia Garden, faced an opponent who used a whip, nor had he encountered much reading on the fighting styles of its users. On the other hand, staves were among the most often-used weapons in history, and the instructor would know exactly what strikes to expect within minutes of engagement.

When he took into account her substantial edge in combat experience, Matthew fully expected to lose this "evaluation." The only victory he could hope for was to make a good impression.

"Begin," she said.

Knowing the instructor would adapt quickly to his attacks, Matthew immediately took the offensive. Closing the twelve foot gap between them quickly with a sprint, he brought the end of his staff upwards toward the instructor's jaw. She hopped back a step to evade the blow, and brought her whip around with an explosive, practiced snap to wrap around his ankle. In a fluid motion, she pulled upwards, the length of her weapon uncoiling rapidly as the light young man was sent several feet into the air before hitting the ground.

He landed painfully on his shoulders and neck, but rolled backwards onto one knee and thrust his staff in a one-handed grip at the instructor's midsection. Side-stepping inside of the attack, she knew he would have to draw the staff back to him before he could strike with it again and drove toward him, launching her knee at his face.

The palm of Matthew's free hand came into the side of her knee to disrupt its path, and her red skirt only grazed his ear. His staff drew back swiftly into the leg she stood on, sweeping her ankle out from under her. It was her turn to land back-first in the dirt, and Matthew stood, waiting for her to rise, as was the protocol for training matches. He took the moment of respite to crack his neck and rotate his shoulders, and knew as the bones popped that he would feel it tomorrow.

"Very good," she said as she stood up. The match continued in this manner for several more minutes, neither gaining an advantage or able to land a deciding blow, a dance of evasion and deflected strikes. Matthew was fast enough to dodge and guard against her attacks, but the instructor was able to correctly predict his before he made them. She saw in his eyes, as the fight progressed, that his confidence gradually deteriorated as he was denied any advantage. Quistis could read in his movements, which began to lose their grace and fluidity, that less thought was being put into his attacks and defense. To maintain his speed, which Quistis knew to be superior to hers, Matthew was relying almost purely on an undeveloped instinct now.

Quistis waited for an opening, and found one. He had brought his staff upward toward her jaw again, as he had in his initial attack. But this was not the controlled, probing strike that the first one was. Matthew swung upwards in a wide arc from his feet. She had expected the attack as soon as the far tip of his staff had begun to drag in the dirt as he closed in on her. Evading the vertical strike with an efficient pivot, she turned her side to him like a fencer and lashed out with her whip, which snapped into his exposed midsection just as his arms cleared his shoulders.

She caught his staff as it dropped from his hand and looked down to where he kneeled, holding his stomach. She set the weapon down in front of him and coiled her whip at her belt.

"Enough for today?" she asked with a gentle half-smile. No matter how far gender equality had progressed, she had come to realize that there was a boy inside of most men who hated losing to a girl. She had hoped that the pragmatic boy would be above such petty hostility, and was disappointed to see him staring in disbelief at where she had struck him.

But then she saw the angry red slash across his uniform as he moved a bloody hand away from where he'd been hit. She had sliced cleanly through his uniform and the shirt he wore beneath it. A steady stream of blood poured down from the long cut and ran down onto his belt.

"Oh, no," Quistis said.

"How did this happen?" Dr. Kadowaki asked as she wrapped bandages around Matthew's bare midsection. Quistis stood nearby and looked on with her arms folded, biting her lip.

"I was training," he said.

"With who?"

"Instructor Trepe."

"Quistis!" Dr. Kadowaki said, reeling on the instructor.

"It was an accident, doctor," Quistis said. "I'm still adjusting to unjunctioned combat and I struck with more velocity than I had intended."

The doctor sighed. "I never thought I'd have to tell you this, but please be careful not to injure your partner while training, Quistis."

"Yes, Dr. Kadowaki. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize to me," the older woman muttered before turning back to Matthew, who was looking out the window.

"How does it feel now?" she asked.

"Fine," he said. "Thank you."

Dr. Kadowaki nodded. "You can take your student now, Quistis. Make sure he stays away from physical training for at least week, so the cut can heal properly."

"And try not give him any more, instructor," she added as the two of them left the infirmary, Matthew pulling his ripped, bloody t-shirt back on as they entered the corridor. He attracted as much attention in his current state as he had in his Galbadia cadet uniform yesterday. So much for blending in, he thought.

"I'm very sorry," she said.

"Don't worry about it."

"Does it hurt?"

"A little. Not really."

She stopped and looked out the window at the morning sun. "You can take today's classes off, if you want to rest," she said.

Matthew shook his head. "No, thank you. If I could just go back to my dorm and change my shirt…"

Quistis turned back to him and smiled. "Certainly," she said. They continued walking.

"Why did you stop trying?" she asked after a moment.

"I don't recall surrendering, instructor," he said.

"But you stopped trying to win."

He looked at her from the corner of his eye, his gaze focused forward. "I never expected to win, instructor," he said.

"Why fight if you don't think you can win?"

Matthew shrugged. "It was a training exercise, an evaluation. I did—"

"Hyne, Matt, what happened? Are you okay?" Rinoa cried, rounding the corner in front of him and looking at his bloody t-shirt in horror.

"Who did this?" she said, putting her hands on his shoulders. "What happened?" she asked Quistis.

The instructor bit her lip again. Matthew gently shrugged out of Rinoa's grip.

"Quistis?" Rinoa persisted. "What happened?"

"We were training," Quistis said. "And…"

"And you cut him?" Rinoa asked, taking a confrontational step closer to Quistis.

"Rinoa, stop," Matthew said, stepping between them. "It was an accident. The wound isn't serious."

She lifted up her brother's shirt up to his chin and pointed to the bandages. "No? Well, that's an awfully big band-aid, then!"

He quickly pulled his shirt back down and pushed her hands away, his face reddened. "Cut it out," he whispered at his sister.

"I'm sorry," Quistis said to Rinoa. "It was an accident. I'm still getting used to fighting without a GF, and I didn't mean to..."

A bell sounded above them, indicating that two minutes remained until the first class of the day.

"I have to get changed before class, Rinoa. I'll see you later," Matthew said.

"Matt, you can't—"

He walked quickly away from her, heading toward the dorms.

Rinoa looked back to Quistis. "I can't believe you cut him."

"Are you sure this is the right way to handle this?" Edea asked her husband, leaning against his desk. She was reading over a mission file, and looked back at him over her shoulder.

"Yes," he said. The headmaster removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

"The more he's away from Garden, away from Rinoa, the more he'll want to come back."

"But is it fair to Rinoa, to keep him out him out on non-stop assignments?"

"What Squall is doing is unfair to Rinoa. I'm just trying to fix it."

Edea turned to face him and set the manila folder on his desk.

"Don't worry," he said. "He'll come around."

"And what if he doesn't? Then what becomes of Rinoa?"

"You know Squall better than that."

"I thought I did," she said. "I didn't think him capable of such selfishness."

Cid stood up and came around the desk to put his arm her. "I know you feel bad about having to give your powers to Rinoa, but you can't blame yourself, dear," he said. "Squall will come around."

"They're going to be fine," he said, kissing the top of her head. "Rinoa's got a job to do here, and Squall will come to his senses.."

"I hope so," she said.

Squall sat on his bed, headphones connected to a portable CD player wrapped around his ears to drown out the country music Irvine and Selphie were listening to while they played Triple Triad in Irvine's half of the dorm. Zell entered the room unheard and promptly smacked the paperback novel up and out of Squall's hands. A blobra card used as a bookmark sailed out the open window. Squall sighed and looked up irritably. Zell was saying something. Squall pressed the pause button on his disc player and tossed the headphones onto the bed.

Zell held a piece of paper inches from Squall's face. "Check it out!"

Squall took it from him and read it over. "Back to Dollet, huh?" He handed it back to Zell.

"Yep," the blond man said, beginning to shadow-box. "Wonder what we're gonna be doing."

"I'm sure Cid will let us know in the morning," Squall said.

"You excited?"

"Not really. But it's a job."

"Exactly!" Zell said, sitting down next to Squall on the bed. "I've been so damn bored all week."

Squall stood and picked up his book. He tried to find the page he was on.

"So did you work things out with Rinoa yet?"

"Hyne."

"What?" Zell asked.

"I should just keep a journal of our relationship on the Garden message boards."

"That'd be pretty cool. Don't know why you'd want everyone knowing—"

"I don't, Zell."

"Oh."

Irvine had walked into the room and was pulling two sodas out of a small refrigerator. "I saw them kissing this morning, Zell. I think everything's cool," he said.

Squall scowled at the grinning cowboy until he went away, and then began to sift through his card collection for a suitable bookmark.

"Look, man," Zell said. "People care about you. Deal with it."

Holding a geezard card between two fingers, Squall slid it back to where he had left off in the book. He tossed the novel back onto his bed.

"Do I seek constant updates on your relationship with Petra, or Irvine and Selphie?"

Zell grinned and stood up. "No," he said. "Because you don't care. Or at least you pretend like you don't. And you know what, Squall? People are kind of offended by that."

"How do you figure?"

"Well, we're not offended. We're your friends and we know that you're a good guy, even if you're a real bastard sometimes. But staying out of everybody else's business doesn't help anyone. See, to most people, having someone ask how you and your girlfriend are doing is a good thing. It makes you feel nice, you know? That what you have is a good thing."

"And what you and Rinoa have is definitely a good thing," Zell continued. "In fact, you're probably the luckiest guy in the world to have attracted someone like her with your personality."

"Hyne, Zell, I wasn't aware that I had a psychiatrist."

The fighter chuckled and clapped Squall on the shoulder as he headed to the door. "Dude, you know I'm right. Lighten up a little, because you're stuck with us for life. That's what friends do."